The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1887-10-13
n HELEN.

III 'ne oiu IoWn OF Edln0urgh, Helen Mars
den, immature portrait painter who was
not unappreciated by the public. None
Of the neighbors knew anything definite
about her except that she was an English
woman. One neighbor, a good motherlv
old lady, with q weakness, perhaps. for
gossip, and whose windows looked into
Miss Marsden's, was determined to get
acquainted with her.
1t was in vain that Miss Marsden.
shrinking and timid as a sensitive plant,
tried to withdraw from this homely hos
pitality. Mrs. Saunders was a womap ac-
customed to manage others and have her
own way, and she would not be denied
Miss Marsden must 60 over and spend
the evening with her; and Miss Marsden
at last, with deep drawn sigh Of resig-
nation, put aside her palette and brushes,
smootbed her back curls, took off the
loose linen wrapper which she wore at her
work, and went over to Mrs. Saunders in
the plain worn black dress in which she
constantly appeared.
After the first evening, with it's half
conscious restraint, was over, and the
ice little broken, Miss Marsden often
found her way to the same friendly draw
ing room, and drank tea, did her best to
relish the buttered toast and the little
piles of cakes, and grew really to like the
old lady's shrewd, sensible talk, which
was never prosy, and sometimes full of
interest, especially when it diverged, as
it often did, to her own experiences. to
the habits and customs of her youth, and
to events which took place when her pen
sive listener was only baby in arms.
Mrs. Saunders history was a common
place one, full of simple pleasures, simple
trials and safe and guarded prosperity.
The cup was full, but it did not overflow
nor did the widow wish that it should
She liked to talk, and, with the garrulity
OF old age, she soon made her silent com
panion mistress of all her past. In the
course Of one or two evenings Helen
Marsden knew how and where and when
the late lamented Mr.. Saunders had died,
of the will he had made, the property he
had left, and the amount of fortune which
Janet, the Widows only child, had brought
to her lord and ID aster, prosperous mer-
chant in Calcutta. Next came detailed
and minute account of Janet's trousseau;
and then, parenthetically, the widow re-
marked that there was something very
romantic in her daughters engagement
and marriage. Her lover was much
older than she was, and grave, staid, re-
served man, too. He fell in love with
Janet, laughing school girl, less for her,
self, it almost seemed, than because he
fancied she was like some one whom he
had once known long before-some one
whom he had loyed and lost, and whom
he fancied he saw resuscitated in the smil-
ing Edinburgh school girl.
" would not have had such poor, Sec
on1 rate love if it had been me-" said
Mrs. Saunders, almost Grossly.
She was searching for something in the
and when she found it she pat it down be-
fore her visitor with an abruptness that
startled her.
"There-that is Janet!' - she said.
1t was the portrait of pale, dark eyed,
laughing girl-much such girl as Miss
Marsden herself might once have been
perhaps, when her pale cheeks had more Of
roundness and softness in their outline;
when her grave mouth, SO straight now,
had pouting smile of its own, and the
sad eyes were merry and bright.
"Well, what do you think of her"
asked Mrs. Saunders.
With slight expression of interest,
and the faintest possible tinge of color in
her pale cheeks, she took up the minia-
ture again and looked at it.
81 think" she said, "that it is like my
own face, only tar-far pretticr."
"No," declared the old lady emphati-
cally, "that it is not although Janet was
very well in her way. And now, rs my
old eyes are getting very dim, will you
read me her last letter, my dear ?"
Miss Marsden complied. She had felt
those long letters which had to be read
and reread 80 often quite an infliction at
first, and then she had come to take
strange interest in them, and in the Scotch
girl on the banks of the Hooghly, so far
from her kith and kin, and pining in her
luxurious home, longing to win for herself
the first place in a preoccupied heart
not happy, but very brave and uncom-
planning, never murmuring at the burden
which she had rashly taken upon herself,
but striving TO bear 1t meekly, and above
all. to prevent it from overshadowing and
crushing her mother. This unknown Ja-
net, whose silks and satins, whose laces
and Jewels, had at FIRST seemed so con-
temptible in Helen Marsden's eyes when
placed by the side of her own earnest hard
working life, was, after all, sorrowful,
self sacrificing woman-much as she bad
been herself-subduing and hiding under
smile her disappointment and anguish
lest they should pain the fond, faithful
heart of the old mother at home.
"We shall have longer letter by the
next mail, 1 am sure," Miss Marsden had
said; and Mrs. Saunders, whether she
quite shared in the expectation or not,
was comforted by the words, and took a
melancholy pleasure, in tie hushed twi-
light in the spring evenings, in telling her
companion all the sorrowtul tales she
could remember.
At last the eagerly expected mail ar
rived, bringing mournful news for the
poor old lady-Janet was dead, and Ja-
nets child, in charge of an ayah. was COM
ing home to her mother, to be cared for
Is lovingly and tenderly as Janet bad
been. Sitting in her armchair, Mrs. Saun-
ders cried softly to herself, but with no
frantic despair in her heart
Thus the time sped on, through the
warmth and brightness Of summer to the
chill. gray autumn weather. Janet had
been more thsu twelve months in her
crave. when ono morning the Indian mail